Part 6 (1/2)

”Yes,” she declared, with a light laugh. ”It is so windy and cold, and oh! so wretchedly dull.”

”I should rather think so!” I cried. ”Why, it is almost within the Arctic Circle. Why did you go up there--so far north--in winter?”

”Ah!” she sighed, ”we are always travelling. My father is the modern Wandering Jew, I think. Our movements are always sudden, and our journeys always long ones--from one end of Europe to the other very often.”

”You seem tired of it!” I remarked.

”Tired!” she gasped, her voice changing. ”Ah! if you only knew how I long for peace, for rest--for home!” and she sighed.

”Where is your home?”

”Anywhere, now-a-days,” was her rather despondent reply. ”We are wanderers. We lived in England once--but, alas! that is now all of the past. My father is compelled to travel, and I must, of necessity, go with him. I am afraid,” she added quickly, ”that I bore you with this chronicle of my own troubles. I really ought not to say this--to you, a stranger,” she said, with a low, nervous little laugh.

”Though I may be a stranger, yet, surely, I may become your friend,” I remarked, looking into her beautiful face, half concealed by the blue wrap.

For a moment she hesitated; then, halting in the gravelled path and looking at me, she replied very seriously--

”No; please do not speak of that again.”

”Why not?”

”Well--only because you must not become my friend.”

”You are lonely,” I blurted forth. ”I have watched you, and I have seen that you are in sore need of a friend. Do you deny that?”

”No,” she faltered. ”I--I--yes, what you say is, alas! correct. How can I deny it? I have no friend; I am alone.”

”Then allow me to be one. Put to me whatever test you will,” I exclaimed, ”and I hope I may bear it satisfactorily. I, too, am a lonely man--a wanderer. I, too, am in need of a friend in whom I can confide, whose guidance I can ask. Surely there is no friend better for a lonely man than a good woman?”

”Ah, no,” she cried, suddenly covering her face with both her hands.

”You don't know--you are ignorant. Why do you say this?”

”Why? Shall I tell you why?” I asked, gallantly bending to her in deep earnestness. ”Because I have watched you--because I know you are very unhappy!”

She held her breath. By the faint ray of the distant electric light I saw her face had become changed. She betrayed her emotions and her nervousness by the quick twitching of her fingers and her lips.

”No,” she said at last very decisively; ”you must abandon all thought of friends.h.i.+p with me. It is impossible--quite impossible!”

”Would my friends.h.i.+p be so repugnant to you, then?” I asked quickly.

”No, no, not that,” she cried, laying her trembling fingers upon my coat-sleeve. ”You--you don't understand--you cannot dream of my horrible position--of the imminent peril of yours.”

”Peril! What do you mean?” I asked, very much puzzled.

”You are in grave danger. Be careful of yourself,” she said anxiously.

”You should always carry some weapon with you, because----” and she broke off short, without concluding her sentence.